Feds Probe Mets Stadium Contactor: Sources

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether a contractor doing billions of dollars in business in the city overbilled for work on projects including the Sept. 11 memorial and the New York Mets' new stadium, officials familiar with the probe said Friday.
    
Prosecutors are looking into whether Bovis Lend Lease padded its billing reports with expenses for unworked hours, the two officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in its early stages.
    
The projects include the memorial, the $800 million Citi Field stadium that opened in April, a New York University hospital project, a mall in Queens and a former bank tower being dismantled across from ground zero, one of the officials said.
    
Bovis said in a statement Friday it's "fully cooperating'' with the investigation by Brooklyn's U.S. Attorney's office and declined comment.
    
"We were unaware of any investigation or wrongdoing,'' the Mets said in a statement. "We take these allegations seriously and are looking into the matter.''
    
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site and is in charge of building the memorial, said its inspector general's office "is actively engaged in the investigation.''
    
More than $800 million of government and private money has been committed to build the memorial to the 2001 terrorist attacks under construction for the past three years.
    
Bovis also is dismantling the former Deutsche Bank tower, a building heavily damaged on Sept. 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed into it. Manhattan prosecutors indicted a former Bovis site safety manager and two other officials on manslaughter charges last year, saying their negligence caused a 2007 blaze that killed two city firefighters.
    
Bovis also was targeted in the investigation but was not indicted.